SURREY Police will axe almost 150 jobs, including 80 officers, over the next 12 months as it attempts to balance the books.

The force is making drastic changes to the way its support teams operate, which will see civilian staff replace police officers.

Cuts will be made through a mixture of redundancies, a recruitment freeze, and natural wastage.

Top brass at police HQ at Mount Browne plan to increase spending on police staff from £76 million to £81 million while cutting the amount it spends on officers.

However, a spokesman said the force was not increasing administrative employees but putting more police staff into frontline services.

The police budget, now worth £198 million, was agreed at a meeting of Surrey Police Authority Monday.

It means its share of the council tax will rise by 4.9%, and the force has admitted it again runs the risk of being penalised by central government.

Each resident in the county on average will pay £197 for its police force when this year’s council tax bills arrive through letterboxes.

"We have had to take painful decisions this year to try to protect frontline services at a time where the money to pay for them has been exceptionally tight," said temporary chief constable Mark Rowley.

"We are determined to do better with less by focussing on what local people want and not chasing a myriad of targets."

Last year government almost had Surrey Police’s budget capped, a tool that prevents excessive rises in a local authority’s demand on council tax.

In its budget report Mr Rowley said any more constraints placed on the funding of the force would probably result in cuts to frontline provision.

Surrey Police said its financial difficulties are due to the grants it receives from Westminster, which the force claims are dwindling in real terms.

Top brass at Mount Browne said government calculations do not take into account the cost of dealing with out-of-county criminals and of having two major airports on its doorstep.

SPA has held a number of meetings in the months leading up to the next week’s announcement to thrash out a budget that would be "near the level at which the government might decide to exercise capping powers".

Along with making cuts the force intends to use £5.2 million from its general reserves to shore up its finances and reduce its council tax demand.

In December last year, local government minister John Healey said the government expects the average council tax increase in the UK to be below 5%, and it would not hesitate to use capping powers.

Last year the Department for Communities and Local Government allowed the police authority to raise its share of the council tax bill 9.7%.

However, its said future budgets would have to meet government levels.

"Making the decision to increase the precept by 4.89% in the current financial climate was not an easy one,and members of the authjority examined all the options," said SPA chairman Peter Williams.